I will believe it when I see it, but there is a hopeful note sounded in Electronic Arts‘ latest publishing decision. I’m not much for the horror genre of games, but the decision by EA to publish a horror title from Grasshopper Manufacture/Q Entertainment is interesting, to say the least. That’s more than a little outside of EA’s usual paradigm.

The latest signings bode well for the company’s new “studio-focused philosophy,” which EA Partners general manager David DiMartini describes as “giving the world’s best independent developers access to EA’s global publishing resources, letting them focus on what they do best — making great games.“

Perhaps there’s hope for BioWare’s Dragon Age yet!

While my friend Myles assures me, via his contacts within BioWare, that this is a good thing, I for one look upon the pending purchase of BioWare/Pandemic by Electronic Arts as a death-knell for a promising studio.

I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, of course…but EA’s track record of turning effective companies into wrecks and producers of poorly-executed, buggy, narratively weak games has been pretty consistent since the days of Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Electronic Arts Inc., the video game developer known for titles such as “Madden NFL” and “The Sims,” said Thursday it will acquire two software studios from Elevation Partners in a deal worth up to US$860 million.

The studios, BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, have a total of 10 games under development. Elevation owns their parent, VG Holding Corp.

Together, the studios employ about 800 people in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, as well as in Canada and Australia.

I guess we’ll see if Dragon Age gets rushed out the door now, or (worse) cancelled.

You can read the official press release from BioWare here.

Update: Further thought…